Sunday, August 07, 2016

Trump takes on the $400 million ransom Obama paid

While the political press is going on and on about today's anti-Trump narrative from Hillary campaign headquarters, President Obama paid $400 million secretly to Iran in January for the release of prisoners. Only Donald Trump seems interested in calling the president out for paying tribute.

Obama's actions are un-American.
For more than 200 years -- hearkening back to the days of Thomas Jefferson -- the United States has refused to pay off Islamic thugs, be they in Tripoli or be they in Tehran.

Donald Trump accused President Obama of lying Friday about whether the administration paid Iran $400 million in ransom for U.S. prisoners, intensifying his charge even as he backed away from earlier claims that he had seen video footage of the exchange.

Footage of such an exchange does not appear to exist.

"We've just learned about a $400 million ransom payment. Now Obama said yesterday, ‘It has nothing to do with it.’ It's another lie. It's just like the Obamacare lie,” Trump said, referring to the Affordable Care Act during a campaign event in Des Moines. “It's just like so many other lies. It's another lie. Same day, just a coincidence right? Cash. Cash."

A video emerged Friday that purportedly shows a US payment of $400 million worth of cash delivered to Iran on the day Tehran released several American prisoners in January.

CNN cannot authenticate the newly surfaced video, which was part of an Iranian documentary that first aired in January and shows the money on pallets in a warehouse. But the latest wrinkle is bound to fuel critics of the administration who have accused Obama of providing ransom to the Iranian government in exchange for the release of four US prisoners. A fifth American was released separately.

The circumstances of Obama’s enormous cash transfer to our terrorist enemies raise serious questions about whether American policy against paying ransoms to terrorists has been flouted. But that should not obscure a more fundamental issue: The president has violated the law.

Trump's controversies and nontroversies over the past year are paying off again. The media has to report on him and he is making the Clinton press pay. They may think they are getting away with something, but the cry from 200 years ago still rings true today: Billions for defense, not one cent tribute.

3 comments:

Dane-geld by Kipling."It is always a temptation to an armed and agile nation To call upon a neighbour and to say: --"We invaded you last night--we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away."

And that is called asking for Dane-geld, And the people who ask it explainThat you've only to pay 'em the Dane-geld And then you'll get rid of the Dane!

It is always a temptation for a rich and lazy nation, To puff and look important and to say: --"Though we know we should defeat you, we have not the time to meet you. We will therefore pay you cash to go away."

And that is called paying the Dane-geld; But we've proved it again and again,That if once you have paid him the Dane-geld You never get rid of the Dane.

It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, For fear they should succumb and go astray;So when you are requested to pay up or be molested, You will find it better policy to say: --

"We never pay any-one Dane-geld, No matter how trifling the cost;For the end of that game is oppression and shame, And the nation that pays it is lost!"TG McCoy